Chapter Text
Natural enemy
In nature, a natural enemy refers to a species that naturally preys on another species.
Like how birds prey on bugs or how snakes prey on frogs. Or how ###### preys on humans.
To defeat one's natural enemy is utterly impossible.
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A gust of wind blew through the canyon, turning up dust and sand as it danced through the rubble. Its quiet performance was interrupted by the roaring sound of a pickup truck.
It leaped over a small bump in the valley as its driver guided its movements. Said driver was a woman draped in heavy robes as she checked the cracked rear view mirror.
"How are you sure your plan worked?!" The woman known as April shouted at the people in the back. A group of elemental masters, even older than her generation, quite a rare sight today.
"We have no way of telling until we run into these summoned heroes!" One of the masters said as she bended the air around them to reduce drag and increase their velocity. Her companions worked on pelting rocks and water at the monster chasing after them.
A large shifting and ever changing mass of fire chased the small truck. Its body roared as it moved far faster than something its size should've been capable of.
All of a sudden, the wind shifted as an air elemental burst out of one of the many caves dotting the canyon's walls. Much faster than its burning brethren, it flanked the truck and, with one powerful gust of wind, lifted the vehicle and toppled it.
April quickly tumbled out of the vehicle and pulled out a small device from her pocket. Switching it to fog mode, the device swiftly started sucking the surrounding air in. Spewing out tons of fog out of the other end, obscuring the area. Wasting no time, she quickly ran to the back of the truck and found the masters already composing themselves and lifting large pieces of rock out of the earth.
"We have to run. There is no sign of your champions anywhere. The summoning failed." she told them as they didn't pay her words any mind.
"April dear, we're likely surrounded. If the sound of the commotion didn't alert more elementals than your little fog distraction certainly did." The same master from earlier said, compressing some air into a tiny ball of raging wind. "I'd suggest preparing for your final fight, and pray to whatever God you believe in." She said.
Aprils' rebuttal was interrupted as she narrowly dodged a tendril made of flames that smashed into the earth where she had just been standing. The masters reacted swiftly, launching their prepared attacks at the mass of fire nearly twice as big as a car. Rock, water, and air met living flames, and the fire elemental simply stood there unfazed by their attacks. Only getting angrier at the sizzle from the water hitting its form.
The fog was blown away as the air elemental blasted a large wave of air in the area. Nearly knocking them off their feet from the sheer strength of the wind.
She looked in desperation as on both sides of their small group lay death. Either by fire or by air. Her hand grabbed the device in her pocket. It was meant to be used in tight situations like this, but she wasn't even sure how to properly activate it, and there was no guarantee it would even kill the elementals around them. She grit her teeth as she realized there was no way out of here, not this time.
"Hose it down!"
Her thoughts were interrupted as out of a corner of the canyon a large vehicle sped through. Stopping in front of the group, the top hatch opened, revealing a massive funnel tied to a hose. It quivered for a moment before releasing a torrent of water straight at the fire elemental.
The blaze recoiled at the sudden influx of water, swiftly dodging and trying to flee. It found the water chasing it. The masters had no clue who the newcomers were, but they had brought a large storage of water, and it would be put to use. The water from the funnel was redirected by the water master, chasing the fire elemental. Its attempts were futile as another master erected a wall of stone to impede its movements, the water slammed it against the wall, and the fire screamed as it was smothered. The flame simply grew smaller and smaller, until it was gone.
Seeing the fire sizzle out, the air elemental roared and slammed into the ground, charging full speed at the group. Picking up countless rocks and particles in its wake, its body became a living blender, intent on tearing apart these disgusting humans and their unnatural tech.
The water master redirected the flow of the water again. Drenching the space that the air elemental took up, slowing it down for only a few moments. The vehicle wielding the hose seemed to open another compartment on the side and shot out a canister at the wind monster.
As the canister flew in the vortex, it was punctured by the swirling rocks. Exploding and releasing tiny particles into the air. The air elemental choked as it felt significant portions of its bodies get trapped in the new particles. Almost as if they were absorbing the moisture and subsequent air around them. Its size shrank, and before it knew it, more water pelted it as more canisters were fired into its rapidly shrinking body. Until all that was left was a pile of wet torn canisters and a large puddle.
April stared at the large vehicle, more like a metal box covered in vines, which had just saved them. Whoever these new people were, they had just swiftly dealt with the elementals on such short notice. Something rose in her chest, something she hadn't felt in a long time. Hope. These must have been the heroes.
The door to the vehicle opened, and out came a man wearing overalls with a large fire axe strapped to his back.
Clara, the master of wind, stepped forward in front of April. "Welcome, he-"
"Listen to me.” The man interrupted her mid sentence. “We have been battling the enemies of mankind for so long, and we have not been able to beat them. They have been destroying our world. So we beg for your help, summoned heroes... Please save us." The younger man said.
It fully dawned on April that behind them the canyon had ended, not blended or naturally fazed out. It just ended. As if someone had taken a knife and sliced it perfectly and then stitched something else on. That something else were towers that reached tall into the sky, cracked and withered by the sands of time. Colonized inside out by vines and plants that climbed the building's frame.
She blinked and blinked again to make sure she wasn't imagining things. That wasn't possible. She had been told that plants had gone largely extinct, swallowed up by the elementals. Buildings this big should've been destroyed years ago. She turned towards the masters, even though they seemed to be stunned at the city that had suddenly appeared out of thin air.
Clara was the first to break the silence. "I believe you must be confused. We are not summoned heroes. You are the ones we brought here while trying to recreate the world engine." She said with a puzzled face.
As his compatriots climbed out of the vehicle through the back, the man looked at her in confusion. "No? We brought you guys here using some experimental technology that...." he trailed off as both he and Clara seemed to come to the same conclusion.
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The two groups sat around a small campfire. Talking.
"I see... It seems that both our attempts at trying to reach out and find help. Was more effective than either of us believed. To think we brought a whole other world." The man who April had come to learn was called kael, muttered as he rubbed his chin in thought.
Clara, ever the leader, spoke out. "Well, since we've been acquainted, I believe it's in our best interests to work together. You people seem quite adept at handling elementals, and you claim to have never heard of such creatures before?" she asked as she stared at kael from across the fire.
He nodded as he took a bite out of a carrot. "Never seen an elemental in my entire life. All we saw was a group of people that needed our help, so we drove right over. I doubt you've had any run-ins with our enemies either." He finished with a loud crunch as he took another bite.
"Ah yes, you mentioned that your people were battling some kind of monsters? Wh-" Her words were interrupted as everyone sensed something in the air shift. As if a faint pressure was applied everywhere all at once.
The people from the truck began to panic. "Shit! They're nearby! Come, we have to hide!" Kael said as he frantically ushered everyone into one of the abandoned buildings. Pressing everyone up against a mossy wall as they peeked through one of the broken windows. Getting a clear view of an empty vine covered intersection a few dozen meters away.
The group stayed quiet as the pressure increased slowly. The source of which was getting closer. The masters tensed, readying to begin preparing attacks the moment the source appeared. April clutched the device in her pocket out of instinct, sweating as she contemplated using it against what was surely a powerful beast born from nightmares.
It seemed like the world itself held its breath for a moment, and then a floating tomato hovered into the middle of the intersection.
… April blinked and then blinked again to make sure she wasn't seeing things. This must have been a trick of the eyes, right? There was no way a floating tomato of all things was making her feel this deep primordial fear in her heart. A feeling so intense that she wanted to curl into a ball and cry. She almost wanted to laugh before she saw the pale faces of Kael and his team.
Their fists white as they tightened their grip, bodies tensing with wide eyes and terror on their faces. Kael turned towards them. He slowly and wordlessly lifted his arm towards a wall at the end of the room. Covered in vines but with some very faint writing hastily written on it. April squinted her eyes, and adjusted for the dark as she made out the words.
Don't think
They can hear your thoughts
What? She thought.
“There you are.” A thought formed in her mind, but the voice was alien, a parody of her own. With speeds faster than the human eye, the tomato hurled itself toward them. Creating a small shockwave as it knocked over everything in its path. Kael and his group quickly ran out of their spots and got into a formation, wielding large firearms.
“Anti Tomato Squad Fire!” Kael shouted as the group proceeded to unleash a wave of herbicide towards the flying fruit. At the sight of the oncoming wave of poison the tomato simply formed a faint glowing crystalline bubble around itself. Harmlessly passing through the cloud of herbicide, continuing its charge unimpeded.
“Shit! Edgard, fire the weapon!” Kael ordered as a large bearded man hunched down and positioned a bazooka on his shoulder. With a click the warhead was fired. Another moment later it hit its target dead center. The street erupted into a massive fire that engulfed the tomato. April instinctively covered her ears from the loud sound, a ringing in her head.
April clutched her head as she was stunned at the display of power. What the hell was that?! A weapon that was powerful that didn't use any of the 4 elements?! Surely its target had been destroyed! To her and everyone's shared horror the tomato continued its charge, its barrier shattered but still soaring towards them.
“Stupid humans.” Another voice in her head spoke “As if your inferior technology could ever harm me.” The tomato ‘spoke’ as the pressure around them increased. April grabbed her throat as she felt like she was being strangled. A trickle of blood began to flow out of her nose.
“When will you apes learn? Your kind will never escape your past sins. Now get out of my sight, you're disgusting.” The voice spoke as everyone began to collapse. Bleeding from their noses as the pressure around their neck became extremely tight.
“Air ball!”
The clear voice of Clara, the air master, shouted as the tomato was knocked back by an exploding ball of compressed air. Launching it back into another building. The pressure was released as everyone gasped for air.
Rushing over Clara quickly began to help up the other masters. “Borin, use your earth to slow that fruit down! Sarah, distract it with water shots! Cole, restrict its movements! And Kane, on my signal shoot up!” She said as with few glances and wordless talks the rest of the masters swiftly got to work. Preparing a myriad of attacks and moves.
The side of a building exploded outward as the tomato flew out. A tiny cut visible on its bright red exterior. It looked annoyed, or at least April thought it did.
“I don't know where you weird looking humans came from and I don't know how you have primitive psychic abilities but t-” It was interrupted as with a flick of the wrist, Borin called upon nearly a dozen tendrils made of rock and stone that tore through the concrete. Attempting to ensnare and crush its target, the tomato swiftly dodged and aimed to fly higher up, out of their grasps. Only to find a wave of fire blocking its path. Before it could react it was pelted by a combination of air slashes and boiling water.
Clara launched a ball of air, borin continued his relentless grasping attacks, sarah fired a volley of boiling water she was making using coles flames. Which was also blocking the tomato's escape routes. Almost in perfect sync the group unleashed a flurry of attacks at the fruit.
Clara shouted as she spotted the tomato trying to form another crystalline barrier. Spinning at rapid speeds as it deflected all their attacks.“Now!”. With the flick of a wrist, the ground erupted as Kane, the master of metal, shot out a piece of rebar from the ground. The metal whizzed through the air as it collided with its target. For a moment it seemed like the new barrier would hold, perhaps even shatter the rebar.
Then a dozen tendrils of earth smashed against the tomato. Followed by rapid shots of water, air, and fire. With one final deafening crack, the shield gave way. Then everyone heard a scream. A scream so loud it smothered every other sensation. A sound in their heads that made everyone cover their ears and scream in return. Before the scream was cut off and the city was quiet again.
April opened her eyes and saw what remained of the chaos. Charred pieces of stone, puddles, statues of rock that reached for a target no longer there. In the center of that chaos a piece of rebar stood tall on the battlefield. A single burned tomato impaled on its tip. The feeling of pressure vanished.
Everyone slowly got back up, regaining their composure. Silence followed for a few moments as everyone stared at the remains of the fruit. Kael stared at the remains of what he once believed to be an unkillable monster. He turned towards the masters as he wiped away the blood from his nose.
“Your people can deal with the fruit, we can deal with the elements. I propose an alliance against our enemies.” He said, stretching his hand out towards Clara. She smiled as she returned the favor “Kael, I believe we have a deal.” She said, shaking his hand firmly as everyone else cheered.
April couldn't help but smile at the sight. She felt that feeling that she had believed had been long since lost returning. Hope. It was a nice feeling, to believe in something. Her hand reached down and pulled out the small device she had stored in her pocket. The current setting was set to fog, with three other options available. Steel, ice, and a crossed out setting she couldn't make out. Maybe next time. She stored it away for later and went to walk over and join the main group who was now discussing.
She managed to take one step before she froze. Feeling a familiar significant pressure returning against her mind and body. She turned to see everyone else freezing up as well. Silent terror on their faces. Something powerful had arrived.
“HOW DARE YOU!” A voice practically screamed into their heads as everyone brought their hands up to their ears out of pain. “You monsters! Killing a defenseless child! Do you have no morals?!” A tomato with a noticeable scar on its side descended upon the group. Surrounded by a small entourage of 6 other tomatoes. All wearing tiny plates of bark and metal that covered most of their bodies.
[TOMATOES]
[Commander of the 64th Knight Circle: Defenders of the Rooted Vine Sanctuary.
Sir Carmine, the unbroken wall]
The voice in their heads pressed with psychic and physical force, a hammer blow of pure psychic power that drove the group to their knees. Blood trickled from ears and noses anew. The hope that had bloomed moments before withered and died, replaced by a terror so deep it was paralyzing.
Commander Carmine hovered at the center of the knightly entourage, his scarred form radiating malice and hate. The six other tomatoes fanned out. The psychic pressure intensified, focusing into a crushing weight on Clara’s mind. She wanted to scream. Feeling an alien mind look through her recent memories.
"YOU." The voice was a blade scraping against her soul. "PRIMITIVE PSYCHIC. YOU LED THE ASSAULT. YOU WILL SUFFER FIRST."
Clara gasped, her vision tunneling. She tried to raise a hand, to summon a gust of wind, but her body refused to obey. The other masters were similarly frozen, caught in the psychic grip of the other knight tomatoes. Kael and his men, faces pale with a horror they had felt before, struggled to even lift their herbicide sprayers.
One of the knight tomatoes shot forward, a crimson blur. It didn’t need a barrier, its speed was its weapon. It aimed for Clara’s head.
A wall of earth erupted from the ground at the last second, a desperate construct from Borin. The tomato shattered through it without slowing down, but the momentary delay was enough. Sarah, the water master, unleashed a torrent, not at the tomato, but at the ground in front of Clara. The street turned to instant mud, and the knight tomato, unprepared, sank slightly, its charge faltering.
It was a pathetic, futile resistance. Commander Carmine’s aura flared with contempt. "DISGUSTING INSECTS."
The pressure shifted, focusing around Kael’s team. The bearded man from before, Edgard, screamed silently as his own firearm was psychically wrenched from his grasp, bent into a useless lump of metal, and then hurled back at him at bullet speed, striking his leg with a sickening crack.
April clutched the device in her pocket, her mind screaming. Steel? Ice? What would work?! The crossed out setting seemed to pulse with a dangerous heat almost calling to her. She fumbled, her fingers slick with blood and sweat. She didn't know what it would do. But it had to help.
*click*
Sir Carmine immediately formed a barrier around himself and the closest knights as a blast of lightning shot out of the device. Striking nearby buildings and shooting off in every direction. April let go of the burning hot device as she was momentarily freed of the fruit's psychic hold.
Just as it had started it had abruptly finished. The lightning stopped firing out of the sizzling device. The only visible evidence it had even been activated besides the scars on the buildings. Sir Carmine released the barrier. “Was that it? That is the best your pathetic species could muster? I knew you new humans wouldn't be an issue.” The pressure increased tenfold for April as she collapsed, pressing into the concrete as she was slowly flattened. “I'll enjoy taking my time ending you vermin.”
Then the world shook for a moment. The temperature increased as a faint orange glow grew closer on the horizon. Followed by a deafening roar that shook the foundations of the ruined city. A wave of heat so intense it made the previous fire elemental feel like a campfire washed over the city block. The vines covering the buildings blackened and curled into ash in an instant.
The psychic pressure from the tomatoes vanished, broken by the sheer, overwhelming presence of something else. Something powerful.
Lumbering around a corner of a skeletal skyscraper came a living raging inferno. It was colossal, a walking wildfire rivaling the heights of the skyscrapers themselves. Its form was a shifting mass of red-hot flames and in its wake trailed a half-dozen smaller, house-sized fire elementals, attracted to the light show that had occurred.
[ELEMENTALS]
[Large Fire Elemental]
The tomatoes’ attention snapped away from the humans. The knights immediately reformed their circle around Commander Carmine, their crystalline barriers snapping into place. The humans were forgotten, irrelevant. A much greater threat had suddenly appeared.
Carmine, the unbroken wall, floated unbothered by the waves of searing heat. He probed the mind of the beast in front of him. Finding only primitive instincts. “It is just a mindless beast. Knights of the 64th circle! Prepare to slay these dangerous monstrosities!” He ordered as he began to radiate new levels of psychic power.
The elemental roared in response, the sound less of a roar and more of a burst of flames that erupted out of the beast. It didn’t think. It didn’t reason. It simply consumed. It saw the unnatural humans, their wrong tech that had caught its attention. But it saw, it felt, the sheer power radiating from the floating tomatoes. Unnatural. Disgusting. Must be purged.
A jet of superheated air shot from the living inferno toward the tomato knights. The tomatoes didn’t dodge. They met it head-on. Their combined barriers glowed blindingly white, not deflecting the blast but containing it, compressing the impossible heat into a swirling orb between them and the elemental.
The air was almost lit ablaze as buildings began to creak and heave under the fire and heat. The city's foundation started to melt under the pressure. As the city began to burn, the two groups charged at one another.
“Now! Go! NOW!” Kael hissed, his voice choked and raspy as he shouted at them.
The pressure gone, survival instinct took over. Borin and Kane worked in tandem, the earth master breaking the street to create a depression in the ground while the metal master bent some broken rebar into a crude shield above them, deflecting the chunks of burning debris raining down around them. Clara and Sarah created a swirling mist of cooled air and water vapor, a weak but vital shield against the radiant heat melting the city.
They scrambled, carrying the wounded Edgard, away from the epicenter of the battle. April risked one look back.
Commander Carmine shot forward, his personal barrier a focused wedge. He didn’t try to deflect or dodge the flames, he simply cut through it all. He and his knights rocketed towards the inferno. Like a pebble flying towards a tornado, the difference in size became more and more apparent as he soared towards the beast. Moving like a bullet head on, a psychic shockwave preceding him as he slammed into the would-be chest of the elemental. For a moment, the immense creature staggered, a hole the size of a house, which dissipated energy. Was the result of where the tomato had struck. The scar on Carmine’s side glowed with furious light and energy.
The beast recovered, the hole simply being filled with flames, swatting at the tomato with a limb of fire as thick as a bus and nearly a hundred times larger than the fruit. Carmine zipped away, but one of his knight attendants was too slow. The fire limb engulfed it. A sickening crack of a shield followed by a brief, psychic shriek of agony that echoed in everyone’s minds, and then silence. The tomato was gone, burned to ashes.
The smaller fire elementals surged forward, engaging the remaining knights. Crystalline barriers shattering under intense heat, and jets of flame being psychokinetically twisted back on themselves.
The group didn’t wait to see more. They ran, stumbling through the ash-covered ruins, the sounds of the cataclysmic battle fading behind them, replaced by the pounding of blood in their ears and their ragged, desperate breaths.
They finally collapsed in the hollowed-out shell of an old ground vehicle, its metal frame half-buried and covered in vines. The sounds of the fight were distant now, though the orange glow in the sky illuminated their hiding place in flickering lights.
April leaned against the rusted wall, sliding down to sit on the filth-covered floor. Her expression a mixture of awe and utter horror. Turning to look at kael. “A child… that first one was just a child?” Kael could only nod in shared feelings. Her body trembling from exertion and residual terror. The device in her pocket felt impossibly heavy, still burning hot.
April’s legs finally gave out. The adrenaline crash, the psychic assault, the sight of the two natural enemies clashing, it was all too much. The world began to melt away, the orange glow dimming as a wave of blackness surged up from the edges of her vision. She fell over, and the last thing she felt was the cold, hard concrete against her cheek before consciousness fled.
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The city was quiet.
Sir Carmine hovered above a field of ash and the remains of this portion of the city. The bodies of the smaller fire elementals were gone, dissipated back into the atmosphere. The colossal inferno was also gone, though its end had not been nearly as quiet. It had taken four more of his knights with it, their brave psychic signatures snuffed out one by one during the brutal, exhausting battle.
Now, only scorch marks and melted rubble remained. The ash and pieces of small melted metal were the only evidence they had even been here.
Carmine’s own barrier was flickering, unstable. A chunk of his side, near the old scar, was blackened and cracked where the infernos' final powerful attack had struck him. He was the Unbroken Wall. And he had not been broken today. But his circle was broken. His knights were dead.
He pulsed a psychic sweep through the ruins, searching for the unnatural, squishy presences of the humans. They were gone. Fled like the vermin they were.
A deep, cold fury settled within him, hotter than any emotion he had felt before. They had slain a seedling. They had forced him to expend his noble knights to eradicate the mindless fire beasts. Their existence was a blight, a putrid disease that had long since overstayed its welcome.
This other world, with its chaotic, runaway elements, was bad enough. But to find that the human pestilence was not only present here but had developed strange powers? He scowled, in the best way a tomato could. He would find those humans and when he did. They would wish they had been given a quick death.
Sir Carmine, Commander of the 64th Knight Circle, Defender of the Rooted Vine Sanctuary, turned away from the battlefield. He had a report to make. The lords needed to know. With a sonic boom he rocketed off towards the skyline.
The city was quiet again.
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Natural enemy
In nature, a natural enemy refers to a species that naturally preys on another species.
Like how birds prey on bugs or how snakes prey on frogs. Or how ###### preys on humans.
To defeat one's natural enemy is utterly impossible.
However
If the natural enemies were to hunt each other…